


Taste of Love

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Betrayal, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: He cannot even cry. He can stand though, if only barely. Stands and struggles towards her, and towards the half-corpse of the greatest wizard. Merlin will not die. Even now Arthur can see the flesh knitting itself together and he tries to apologize because he know he promised.





	Taste of Love

Arthur, at this point, is used to betrayal. It is a thought that burns in him, burns cold like fire shouldn’t and settles in his gut like stew made of meat-rot. No one, king or peasant, should ever find betrayal a companion closer than self, but here he is, curled up with nothing but the hate of those he loved draped around his shoulders.

The wound does not hurt, not the way he imagined. There’s a throbbing ache that manages to be both dull and sharp, but it is second to the way his chest is caving in. He can feel the strings that once held his heart up, snapping. Hollow pops that echo against his ribs, and he thinks the birds set free in him, with their needle-beaks, should leave some blood for his sister.

Because this betrayal, it stings more than the servant-turned-lover who lied to him, or the uncle who longed for his head, or the boy-turned-brother whose sword pinned him to the ground for this moment.

Morgana stares at him and her eyes are blank, so blank. Empty like a cloudless sky, dark like a moonless, foggy night. Cold like his body is starting to feel.

“Morgana, why?”

“I loved you once, brother.”

The taste of love is bitter, he finds, like the taste of a winter root pressed to his cheek while he waits for the sweetness of summer honey on his tongue.

Summer has faded though, has nothing left to offer him but glinting metal and a scream that makes the mountains tremble. Arthur cannot believe he ever feared the wave of those hands, those eyes, but now they are aimed at a hay-spun girl clothed in spring blossoms and hung to dry.

“Don’t Merlin. Let her be.” He cannot hear his own voice, but his lover does. He watches as the man who crumbles mountains falls to his knees, watches as his sister, the one he spared, drives her hand into his heart.

He cannot even cry. He can stand though, if only barely. Stand and struggles towards her, and towards the half-corpse of the greatest wizard. Merlin will not die. Even now Arthur can see the flesh knitting itself together and he tries to apologize because he know he promised.

Forever is a long promise to keep and one he knew he would break. Morgana watches him with pleading eyes; the eyes of a girl who saw too much and broke.

“You were always stronger, Morgs.”

She sobs, wet and broken and when he pulls the sword from his belly she does not step away. He hugs her, tight, like they did as children. She breaths against his cheek like she’s saying goodnight, and together they fall, metal singing a last lullaby against stone.

In the end, his only regret is Merlin, who buries them on a hill, beneath a mighty tree born from his grief. Merlin, who will sit there, still as stone like the angles they'll carve from legends of a man waiting on a king to return; a king who has yet to find his sister and bring her home. Merlin, who will taste of ash and too-ripe fruit until Arthur comes back, and Morgana offers him clean water. Merlin, who was the last taste on his lips before the fade.

  
  



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